elem

   'elem' <nr|!> [set]|
       [<firstNode> .. <lastNode> 'be2'|'be3'|'tr3'|'tr6'|->
       'qu4'|'qu8'|'he8'|'he20']

This keyword is used to define elements based on nodes and its type (see section Element Types in the appendix for the correct node-order). For example,

elem 1 1 2 3 4 qu4

creates a shell element with four nodes. If the an automatically generated name is desired, then type ”!” instead of a name. Shell elements can be created based on a set of element-faces:

elem ! faceset

This might be useful to create a layer of shell elements on volume elements.